Delhi-based Solvy Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates product review portal Reviews42, has raised $5 million in funding led by Tiger Global. Existing investors Blume Ventures and Nirvana Ventures Advisors have also invested in the round, according to a report by Livemint.
The funds will be used to by the company to improve its product, build the team and expand its presence to cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai. Bangalore will go live next month, followed by Hyderabad and Chennai.
As of now, the company is present in Delhi-NCR and claims to have around 1,000 retailers on board. The service is available on both desktop and mobile, with the latter accounting for close to 60 per cent of its total traffic. It currently offers apps on the Android, iOS and Windows platforms.
Reviews42 is a community-based product review site, co-founded by Surjendu Kuila and Neeraj Jain back in 2011. It works by aggregating user reviews across a variety of categories including computers & accessories, mobile phones, home appliances, apparels & accessories, baby products, kitchen ware and more. Reviews42 enables users to browse and search through products by brand, categories, features and pricing. Besides offering a detailed specification page along with user reviews, expert reviews, buying tips and overall ratings, it also features a price comparison engine.
Prior to this round, the company had raised an undisclosed amount in Series A from Nirvana Venture Advisors and Rahul Khanna (managing director of Canaan India who has invested in his personal capacity), as well as a few other undisclosed individual investors in April last year. Existing investor Blume Ventures also participated in this round.
Before that, it had secured an undisclosed amount in funding from Blume Ventures and VentureEast Partners in June 2012.
Apart from the fundraising, the company is also rebranding itself as Zopper.com.
“Our brand name does not do justice to what all we offer. People only look for reviews and don’t appreciate other services we have,†Jain told the publication. While the Reviews42 website is already redirecting to Zopper.com, an official launch will happen later this month.
Other players in the online price and product comparison space include companies like MySmartPrice.com (which has pivoted from a basic price comparison site to a product discovery platform), FindYogi, PriceBaba, Buyit, PriceDekho, and Amazon’s (the world’s largest online retailer) Junglee.com, among others.
Earlier this year, price comparison site BearShop.in (launched in 2012) had shut shop.
Hedge fund cum early stage tech investment firm Tiger Global Management LLC has been one of the most aggressive backers of Indian tech firms with investments in firms such as Flipkart and Myntra (acquired by Flipkart). Apart from them, Tiger Global has also backed firms like Commonfloor, Olacabs, Caratlane, Freshdesk, Babyoye, Zovi, Just Dial and MakeMyTrip, in India.